In March 2003 an estimated 77,000,000 unique users used an instant messaging client, half of the total internet population (Hu; Festa, 2003). Another survey conducted in June 2002 showed that 66.8% and 54.5% of Internet users used instant messaging in Hong Kong and Singapore respectively (NetValue, 2002). The huge popularity of this communications medium has also influenced business. In May 2002 12,600,000 office workers, or 31% of online workers, used some form of instant messaging (Nielsen NetRatings, 2002). News article (Hu) is referred to in first sentence. Additional research (statistics) help to explain the potential of the issue in the AREA of IMPACT: Business and Employment.
Instant messaging offers many advantages to business: real-time communication, direct file sharing (Tyson, Date Unknown), streaming content (Tyson, Date Unknown), videoconferencing and networking of Internet devices (Hu, 2003). Collaboration of projects and exchange of data between companies will therefore be easier and more efficient (Hu, 2003), resulting in higher profitability. The IT system is discussed with the positive/advantages highlighted and subsequent impacts noted. These could be explored further in C.
However, companies are also concerned over security and manageability issues. Many free IM clients today do not offer logging, and consequently companies are not able to monitor the actions of employees, allowing them to casually chat and causing loss of productivity or even leak company documents (Foo, 2003). The file-sharing feature of IM could also potentially create a tunnel through security measures, as viruses may enter through transferred files (Frase, 2001) to corrupt data or steal valuable information. Thus from this seemingly harmless tool, businesses may lose more money than they gain from the benefits of IM, which at the very worst could lead to a company collapse. This is a full explanation of the issue in the last paragraph, giving good coverage of the social consequences it raises. News article (Hu) is referred to throughout.
Criterion C: The Impact of the Issue
Instant messaging affords business many advantages. Because IM is free, companies can cheaply communicate in real-time with clients and/or business. File sharing without IM would be a lengthy process, usually done by uploading and then downloading e-mail attachments, which is obsolete compared with IM’s direct transfer features. Voice conversations and videoconferencing are not only supported in many IM clients, but can be performed without previous notice. In situations such as the worldwide SARS virus outbreak, face-to-face meetings are not possible, and thus companies hope that IM will be able to serve as a substitute (Konrad, 2003). Streaming content such as real-time stock quotes (Tyson, Date Unknown) can also be integrated into clients. All this would improve productivity and cause higher profitability for companies. Positive economic impact on Businesses. Explained and analysed.
However, it may be argued that IM may cause employees to chat casually with contacts (Glasner, 2002b), wasting Internet bandwidth, and thus productivity both for themselves and for other employees will be lowered. Negative impact on businesses - explained and analysed.
Security concerns also arise with file sharing, as it opens tunnels through firewalls. A file received by employees may carry undetected viruses (Frase, 2001), which then may destroy files or steal company information and transmit them to a hacker. If this happened, company secrets with financial value may be stolen and company servers would be down, severely reducing productivity.Negative impact on businesses explained and analysed.
Lack of logging functions on current IM clients affect manageability, and companies fear they are breaking the law in not recording conversations with customers (Glasner, 2002b). This inability to track the actions of employees may also provide an avenue for them to share out confidential company documents to other people (Foo, 2003), thus losing money for companies, and to send messages which include harassment and discrimination (Guzzo, 2002), thus creating a hostile workplace for employees. Negative impacts for employees explained and analysed.
There is no ANALYSIS paragraph, however each paragraph explains a piece of research and then goes on to analyse the impact on society. This is acceptable for a level 4 however an additional sentence (see example below) that summarises the potential impacts would firmly place this in a level 4.
Whilst productivity could be improved by the use of IM for situations where face to face contact is not possible, this could be offset by the potential damage caused by inappropriate use by employees.
Overall the concerns over security and manageability, as well as the lack of effective solutions to combat them, have been the biggest issue for businesses. IM isfurther hampered by the lack of interoperability of different clients (Olsen, 2002) and lack of support of languages other than English (Creed, 2001). IM manufacturers are looking into the ways to overcome these inherent problems but still more development is needed for IM to become a viable business option. Evaluated - the word "overall" at the beginning of the paragraph indicates that the student is now into "evaluation" mode. Additional evidence in the second sentence supports the evaluation. This brings it up to a level 5.
Criterion D
Whilst decreased productivity is of great concern, more companies believe that security breaches, such as viruses in received files, are a bigger problem (Glasner, 2002a). Hence one solution is to use anti-virus software (Frase, 2001). Anti-virus software uses virus templates to detect computer infections and runs in the background to scan files whenever they are accessed or created, so viruses should be detected and removed as soon as they are received. The best ones also scan within IM clients, furthering reducing the occurrence of viruses. The problem has been stated in the first sentence. The solution has been explained - although a few more details would ensure that the marks are awarded.The solution has been researched.
The advantages of anti-virus programs are that they detect and remove the majority of viruses; however, they may cause the inconvenience of updating templates regularly on all computers. Also, their effectiveness is reduced, as they cannot detect very new and polymorphic viruses because there is no corresponding template. The solution has been evaluated. Two limitations have been highlighted.
This paper was written with the old criterion for D where two solutions were required - hence this is slighter briefer than might be expected for D. Criterion B is also absent as this too was presented under the previous criterion.
Criterion A: Presentation of the Issue
In March 2003 an estimated 77,000,000 unique users used an instant messaging client, half of the total internet population (Hu; Festa, 2003). Another survey conducted in June 2002 showed that 66.8% and 54.5% of Internet users used instant messaging in Hong Kong and Singapore respectively (NetValue, 2002). The huge popularity of this communications medium has also influenced business. In May 2002 12,600,000 office workers, or 31% of online workers, used some form of instant messaging (Nielsen NetRatings, 2002). News article (Hu) is referred to in first sentence. Additional research (statistics) help to explain the potential of the issue in the AREA of IMPACT: Business and Employment.Instant messaging offers many advantages to business: real-time communication, direct file sharing (Tyson, Date Unknown), streaming content (Tyson, Date Unknown), videoconferencing and networking of Internet devices (Hu, 2003). Collaboration of projects and exchange of data between companies will therefore be easier and more efficient (Hu, 2003), resulting in higher profitability. The IT system is discussed with the positive/advantages highlighted and subsequent impacts noted. These could be explored further in C.
However, companies are also concerned over security and manageability issues. Many free IM clients today do not offer logging, and consequently companies are not able to monitor the actions of employees, allowing them to casually chat and causing loss of productivity or even leak company documents (Foo, 2003). The file-sharing feature of IM could also potentially create a tunnel through security measures, as viruses may enter through transferred files (Frase, 2001) to corrupt data or steal valuable information. Thus from this seemingly harmless tool, businesses may lose more money than they gain from the benefits of IM, which at the very worst could lead to a company collapse. This is a full explanation of the issue in the last paragraph, giving good coverage of the social consequences it raises. News article (Hu) is referred to throughout.
Criterion C: The Impact of the Issue
Instant messaging affords business many advantages. Because IM is free, companies can cheaply communicate in real-time with clients and/or business. File sharing without IM would be a lengthy process, usually done by uploading and then downloading e-mail attachments, which is obsolete compared with IM’s direct transfer features. Voice conversations and videoconferencing are not only supported in many IM clients, but can be performed without previous notice. In situations such as the worldwide SARS virus outbreak, face-to-face meetings are not possible, and thus companies hope that IM will be able to serve as a substitute (Konrad, 2003). Streaming content such as real-time stock quotes (Tyson, Date Unknown) can also be integrated into clients. All this would improve productivity and cause higher profitability for companies. Positive economic impact on Businesses. Explained and analysed.However, it may be argued that IM may cause employees to chat casually with contacts (Glasner, 2002b), wasting Internet bandwidth, and thus productivity both for themselves and for other employees will be lowered. Negative impact on businesses - explained and analysed.
Security concerns also arise with file sharing, as it opens tunnels through firewalls. A file received by employees may carry undetected viruses (Frase, 2001), which then may destroy files or steal company information and transmit them to a hacker. If this happened, company secrets with financial value may be stolen and company servers would be down, severely reducing productivity. Negative impact on businesses explained and analysed.
Lack of logging functions on current IM clients affect manageability, and companies fear they are breaking the law in not recording conversations with customers (Glasner, 2002b). This inability to track the actions of employees may also provide an avenue for them to share out confidential company documents to other people (Foo, 2003), thus losing money for companies, and to send messages which include harassment and discrimination (Guzzo, 2002), thus creating a hostile workplace for employees. Negative impacts for employees explained and analysed.
There is no ANALYSIS paragraph, however each paragraph explains a piece of research and then goes on to analyse the impact on society. This is acceptable for a level 4 however an additional sentence (see example below) that summarises the potential impacts would firmly place this in a level 4.
Whilst productivity could be improved by the use of IM for situations where face to face contact is not possible, this could be offset by the potential damage caused by inappropriate use by employees.
Overall the concerns over security and manageability, as well as the lack of effective solutions to combat them, have been the biggest issue for businesses. IM is further hampered by the lack of interoperability of different clients (Olsen, 2002) and lack of support of languages other than English (Creed, 2001). IM manufacturers are looking into the ways to overcome these inherent problems but still more development is needed for IM to become a viable business option. Evaluated - the word "overall" at the beginning of the paragraph indicates that the student is now into "evaluation" mode. Additional evidence in the second sentence supports the evaluation. This brings it up to a level 5.
Criterion D
Whilst decreased productivity is of great concern, more companies believe that security breaches, such as viruses in received files, are a bigger problem (Glasner, 2002a). Hence one solution is to use anti-virus software (Frase, 2001). Anti-virus software uses virus templates to detect computer infections and runs in the background to scan files whenever they are accessed or created, so viruses should be detected and removed as soon as they are received. The best ones also scan within IM clients, furthering reducing the occurrence of viruses.The problem has been stated in the first sentence. The solution has been explained - although a few more details would ensure that the marks are awarded. The solution has been researched.
The advantages of anti-virus programs are that they detect and remove the majority of viruses; however, they may cause the inconvenience of updating templates regularly on all computers. Also, their effectiveness is reduced, as they cannot detect very new and polymorphic viruses because there is no corresponding template.
The solution has been evaluated. Two limitations have been highlighted.
This paper was written with the old criterion for D where two solutions were required - hence this is slighter briefer than might be expected for D. Criterion B is also absent as this too was presented under the previous criterion.